Bullet Proof
by AGMitchell1812
Summary: "Have you ever wondered why things work out the way they do, or what your place in the world is? I can't tell you how many times I've asked myself those questions over the years." Follow Alex Mitchell and her friends Kendall (Beale) and Carmen (Posen) as they go from safe, to hunted. Can Beca, Chloe, and Aubrey protect them? Bad Summary, I promise the story is much better!
1. Prologue

**PROLOGE**

Have you ever wondered why things work out the way they do, or what your place in the world is? I can't tell you how many times I've asked myself those questions over the years. Life is never simple; that's just fact. There will be times that leave you devastated, hurt and broken. There are times when you think, "Where am I going?" or, "What do I do now?" Well, the truth is you'll never know until you take the risk. Every choice you make in your life has a purpose, no matter how small the choice might seem. And out of those choices, you learn and grow.

My name is Alexandra Mitchell, but that's a little too formal for my liking, so Alex is fine. I'm nineteen, love music, love playing sports, live for the outdoors, I like my coffee hot and sweet, I have a hard time holding my tongue at times. I am outspoken, I am guarded, and I am my own person. I am also a Captain in the United States Marine Corps.

Now, I know what you're probably thinking, "How the hell did a nineteen year old get a rank as high as captain in such a short amount of time?" Well, the truth is, I didn't have the same upbringing as other kids my age. I was thrown into this life when I was maybe nine or ten. And, to be completely honest, it was the best thing to happen to me. I didn't understand it at the time, but I see now that if my parents (more specifically my mom) wouldn't have sent me here, I'd probably be somewhere on the street smoking pot and getting drunk every night. My home life wasn't exactly ideal.

I try not to think too much about my years growing up at home. My parents did nothing but fight. It didn't happen every night, but more often than not. Things started getting particularly bad about eleven years ago when I was eight.

It was a cold, snowy night in December. Christmas was only a couple days away, so all of the companies had time off from work. Well, all of the companies accept my dad's. Before he became a professor at Barden, my dad worked at an accounting firm and was the head of his particular department. Even though the pay was pretty good, we didn't get to spend a whole lot of time with him. He was always working late and was exhausted when he came home. Most of the time he would come through the door and just go straight into the bedroom and we wouldn't see him for the rest of the night. On this particular night, my dad came home about four hours later than he usually did. Normally he got home around eight or eight-thirty, but it was well after midnight when door finally creaked open.

The sound of the door opening instantly woke me up. The room Beca and I shared was upstairs, but no matter how quiet you tried to be, the damn thing would always make some kind of sound. I immediately got out of bed and started running towards the open bedroom door, but stopped short when I heard my sister stir. If there's one thing you need to know about Beca, it's that her sleep is a very crutial part of her attitude. Give her a good nights sleep, you'll have no problems, wake her up in the middle of the night, God help you. That being said, you can imagine that waking her up was the last thing I wanted to do, so I waited until I heard the soothing sound of her deep breathing before I snuck out into the hall.

As I crawled along the wood work, I could already hear the sound of them arguing. I wasn't close enough to make out what was being said, but just by the tone of their voices it didn't sound good. They were in the living room right bellow the stairs; I saw my mother leaning against the doorframe and my father was in the process of hanging up his coat. As I got closer I heard my mom say, "Brian, it's after midnight, I was getting worried. What kept you so long?" Her voice was very soft, like she was afraid of the answer.

"I was finishing some paperwork for the next couple weeks, the company is going to have to let some of the employees go. I told you I would be late tonight." He said curtly.

"Yes, you said a of couple hours. I wasn't expecting you'd be this late, I thought you would at least call me to say you were on your way home."

"I'm sorry, I just got caught up," He said absently, his expression annoyed and tired.

My mother just folder her arms over her chest and glared at him. This was one of her signature moves, if you were ever in enough trouble to get this look, there was absolutley no hope for you. My mom was usually a pretty easy going woman, she was always in a good mood when we came home from school, she helped us with our homework, her cooking was to die for, and she always had something positive to say. At least that's how it was in front of us

Looking down at the two of them now and seeing them like this made me feel like I was in a completely different place. I was so engrossed in their conversation I didn't hear the soft sound of footsteps behind me and didn't know anyone was there until I felt a hand go across my mouth. I jumped and yelped, turning to see my sister with her hands on her hips.

"Alex, what are you doing up? It's almost twelve-thirty." Beca scolded.

I pushed away her hand and squirmed out of her grasp. "I heard dad come home, I wanted to see him."

She sighed, "You know he'll probably just push past you, it's what he always does." I could see her roll her eyes in the dim light. There had been plenty of nights I'd sit at the window and wait for him to come home and when his car finally pulled into the drive way I'd get so excited. As soon as the door opened I would run up to him and say "Daddy!", with my hands raised over my head so he'd pick me up. But he never did, he'd just walk right past me, hang up his coat and head to his study. I'm not sure why I kept thinking he'd eventually change his mind, looking back on it. I'd always think "Oh he's just tired, tomorrow night will be different." Yeah, not so much.

All of a sudden we heard this big crash come from the living room. Beca and I ran to the stairs and I heard her gasp. Below us, the flat screen tv we had was now laying in the middle of the room, glass shattered all over the place. The tv stand was broken in half and the monitor was smoking. My father was standing by the broken tv balling his hands into fists and I could see his jaw clenching and unclenching. His face was a dark shade of red and there was a vain sticking out of his neck. My mother was on the other side of him, her face a light shade of pink, her eyes shown with fury and irritation, and by her body language we could tell she was trying so hard not to yell.

I let out a whimper and shrank back against my sister. Our parents heads shot up in our direction and their expressions immediately shifted from furious to guilty. I felt Beca's arms wrap around my in a protective manner and she pulled me close to her. I looked up and saw her glaring at both of them, but specifically our dad.

"Beca, take your sister back to bed please, it's late." Our mother said gently. Her eyes shifted between the two of us, and it looked like she was close to breaking. You could see her chin trembling and her eyes were filling with tears. Beca shot them one last look, then took my hand and led me back to our room. She shut the door and pushed the toybox we had in front of it. I had already climbed back into my bed, and was starting to lay down when they started yelling. I whimpered and pulled the blanket over my head. The side of my bed drop a little and I felt Beca wrap her arms around me in a tight hug. I pushed back, trying to get as close to her as I could.

You could hear their screaming all away across the house. It terrified me when they got this upset. When their fighting got too out of hand she would always take me straight to our room and we'd start to play a board game or she would sing to me. When she sang I couldn't help but stop thinking about all the bad things, it was like my worries just vanished. Back then, in my eyes, Beca walked on water. She was my everything, and then two years later, it all went to hell.

That's when my father left; that's when my mother had finally broken down and sent me to live with her sister (Kate) and husband (John) in Michigan. This was when my life really changed for the better. You see, my uncle, at the time, was a Captain in the Corps, and its through him that I was introduced to the Military.

Now, I'm not going to go into detail about going through the Academy, or boot camp, or any of that. We'll just say that from age ten to ninteen have been some of the hardest, yet most exciting years of my life. Between those times I graduated from the MA, where I met my two best friends, Kendall Beale and Carmen Posen, a few years later we graduated from Marine Basic Training, and I've alrady served two tours over seas.

After graduation from the Academy when I was fifteen was when the family really drifted apart. I had the chance to either stay in the military and start a career, or try to transition into civilian life; the choice was simple. Military. The military was all I had ever known, and truth be told, leaving it terrified me. When I told my sister of my plans she wasn't particularly happy with my choice, but she understood. We promised that we would keep in touch and that I would visit as often as I could. Up until about a year ago, that wasn't a problem, but then I was deployed for the third time.

That's where this story really begins.


	2. Chapter 1

**Hey Guys! Sorry for the long delay, I've been swamped with homework this past week, but now I'm on Spring Break so I should be able to get a couple new chapters up soon!**

**By the way, I apologize for making Alex sound somewhat depressing at the beginning. I had a certain way I wanted to start this, but it didn't exactly fall through the way I had planned. But don't worry! Later chapters will definitely have some of the classic Mitchell sarcasm ;) **

**Reviews are always welcome! =)**

**CHAPTER 1**

Entry Log: 10/18/2012; Captain A. Mitchell, United States Marine Corps

'Six months. That's how long we've been here. Six lousy months of wondering if there was going to be an attack during night, six months of hardly any sleep because of the explosions going off around camp, six months of watching the people you've come to think of as your family being killed off like they were deer in shotgun season. Even as I'm writing this, I can hear the sound of soldiers yelling and the echo of gun fire ricochet of off the buildings from the town. UGH! Will this ever stop?!'

I set down my pen and read over what I had just written, "Damn, when did I become so depressing?"

I shook my head and ripped the page out of the journal. I scowled and leaned back in my chair, staring out the window at the sand blowing across the desert. I really don't know why my CO is making us write in these stupid journals. I mean I like to write, but I don't want people going through my personal issues. I get things have been pretty rough around here lately, but that doesn't mean everyone is going to start having symptoms of PTSD. I shook my head, God I couldn't wait to get out of here. We've had more casualties in the last month than we have in the joint time of all three of my deployments. Granted during the first two I was stationed in Berlin, Germany, so there really wasn't much going on.

My unit left for Iraq on April 18, 2012 and ever since we got here, it's been nothing but a living Hell. In the amount of time between April and October we've lost almost a fourth of our team. The officer that briefed us explained that things wouldn't be easy over here like they were in Germany, California or anywhere else. This part of Iraq was what we called "The Death Trap". You really never knew what was going to happen day-to-day, one minute you would be eating with a couple of friends, the next you could be trapped behind a wall being shot at. Thankfully, that situation has only happened once, the casualties came from field missions. My eyes became a little watery.

During our last field mission we had lost one of our Staff Sergeants and a very good friend of mine. We got into a surprise fire fight about half way between our base and the town we were going to check out. It had been a pretty quiet day, no problems for 3/4 of the walk, but when we were passing by a couple destroyed tank, four Taliban members popped out from behind one and opened fire on us. The team immediately scattered. I saw two of my team mates go down almost instantly and told Kendall and a few others to give me some covering fire while I went out to see if either of them were hurt badly.

Getting to them was the easy part, looking at what happened to them on the other hand...let's just say is that it took all my will power not to get sick. The first soldier, his name was Roy Benson, had to have been killed instantly, his abdomen had been blown open and the bottom half of his body was basically in tatters. The other man was his tent mate, Eric Johnson. He had been shot, but he wasn't dead. His leg and shoulder were bleeding heavily, but he was still able to talk to me. I wasn't sure about his leg, but his arm looked like it would be alright, the bullet had missed some crucial tendons.

"Captain Mitchell, you've gotta get out of here. Leave me, Roy is already dead and I don't think I can get up, I can't feel my left leg. Don't risk anyone else getting hurt." Johnson had pleaded. His voice was strong, but his eyes held in a lot of pain and agony. I shook my head and smiled at him, "Sorry Eric, but you're stuck with me." I tore off a strip of my jacket and wrapped it tightly above the wound on his leg.

"Shit!" He cringed and his head fell back against the sand. I could tell he was trying hard to hold it together, his face scrunched up in pain and his knuckles were pure white. "Eric, let go, it's okay." I said softly. I never heard his answer because right as he started to sit up, there was the soft thump of a grenade hitting the sand less than twenty feet behind me. Less than a second later, it exploded. Before I knew what I was doing, my body on top of Eric's, trying to cover him from the debris. I could feel the shrapnel dig in and burn my skin all the way down my arms and on the small of my back. It felt like I had red hot knives being jabbed into me over and over again.

When the dust cleared I quickly got off of him and started to work on his leg again. That's when things went down hill. I felt the cold tip of a gun being thrust angrily into my back and the harsh accent of angry Taliban. I wanted to reach for the pistol I had hanging from my belt, but any sudden move probably would have gotten Eric and I killed. I slowly turned around and held up my hands. There was no one else around, at least no other Taliban members. Glancing down I noticed the man was using a semi automatic machine gun, but it was really worn. The Al Qaeda member spoke again, only this time he swung the butt of the gun around and hit me in the jaw. Almost instantly I felt the blood start to fill my mouth and had to resist the urge to vomit. The man pointed the weapon at me and smiled evilly, his accent was thick, but I could easily hear him say "See you down under."

"Oh, I don't think so,"

The Al Qaeda member whirled around, only to be nailed in the face by the butt of another gun. His eyes crossed and he fell to the ground. I wasn't sure if he was dead or not, but honestly I didn't care. The owner of the gun bent down and gently cupped my cheek with her hand, "Always gotta be the hero don't you Alex?" Staff Sergeant Sarah Marshall said lightly, but with a stern tone.

I chuckled and shrugged, "Hey, what can I say. Eric might be annoying, but he grows on you after awhile. C'mon we need to get him out of here, you can give me a lecture later."

Those would be the last joking words we'd ever say to each other. We didn't even have time to get Sergeant Johnson off the ground before three other Taliban members jumped out from behind a tank and fired on us again. Sarah pushed me to the ground "Stay down, and watch over Eric." She got up and shot at the Al Qaeda members, hitting and killing two of them. The third dove behind the tank and fired from underneath it. Sarah fired back, but the guy was completely covered by the machine. He ran to the back and turned his gun on Eric and I. Honestly, I thought that was the end right there, I never expected either of us to come out of that alive. I jumped on top of Eric again and braced myself for the pain, but it never came. I heard the sound of a single shot, but then everything just became very quiet. After a few minutes Eric gently pushed me off of him and rose on his forearms. There was so much dust stirred up it was impossible to see anything.

Then he gasped, "Alex, look." I turned towards him and looked in the direction he was pointing. My heart dropped at the sight. The Al Qaeda member was dead, lying in a pool of dark blood and beside him was Sarah. I got up and ran over to them. Sarah's skin was extremely pale, her eyes were a cloudy blue, and her breath was coming in short spurts. I tore open her jacket and saw the blood pouring from her chest every time she took a breath. "Oh my God," I said softly. I quickly took off my jacket and held it against the wound. Sarah coughed and moaned.

"Sarah, I'm so sorry." The blood just kept coming, it soaked right through my jacket and her coughing became more drastic. My eyes filled with tears, I couldn't lose her, not here, not now!

The older woman gently took my chin in her hand and made me look at her. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she knew exactly how bad it was. "Alex, it's no use. The bleeding isn't going to stop."

"Yes it will, I just-" Her hand gently pushed mine off of her chest. I looked down at her, the tears easily flowing down my cheeks. She raised a hand and cupped the side of my face. "Sarah, please, fight. You can do this, don't leave." I begged.

Sarah and I had met during boot camp and we became very fast friends. We were stationed in Germany together and looked out for each other. She was three years older than I was, but she was a total kid at heart. At 5'7 she was one of the taller women in the unit, she had black hair, intense blue eyes, an athletic build, she was totally scary when she got pissed, but one of the best listeners and most caring people I had the pleasure of meeting. She reminded me a lot of Beca.

The older woman looked up at me and smiled, "I'm glad we met Alex. You will go on to do great things with the Marine Corps, I have no doubt. You're a great kid and a wonderful friend. Just promise me something okay?"

"Anything,"

She gripped my chin harder and looked directly in my eyes, "Promise me you'll always look after yourself, don't let my death keep you from accomplishing everything you possibly can. I know what you're capable of, and if I see you being all depressed down here I will personally come back down and kick some sense into you myself." She smiled slightly, but her eyes proved that she was serious. I laughed once and nodded. "I promise." She smiled one last time and then closed her eyes. Her breathing became very slow and finally stopped. Sarah died on August 23, 2012.

I was so engrossed in my thoughts I didn't hear the knock on my door and jumped when I felt hands squeeze my shoulders.

"Oh my God!" I yelped and whirled around. Staff Sergeant Kendal Beale stood behind me with a small smile playing on her lips."Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I tried knocking a few times, but you never turned around. Maybe you should consider putting a bell on your door."

I rolled my eyes at her and chuckled. "Yeah, I'll be sure to keep that in mind." I said and turned back toward the window. Kendal rose an eyebrow and came over to stand beside me. "What's wrong, you look really pale."

I shook my head, "It's nothing, I'm just thinking."

"Well it must be something pretty unpleasant judging by the look on your face." Her voice was full of worry. I sighed, "I've been having nightmares about Sarah again."

She didn't say anything, she pulled me into a hard hug. I automatically wrapped my arms around her and squeezed back. It was funny, Kendal always seemed to know what everyone needed, even if they only talked for a few minutes.

"Why didn't you tell me, how long has this been going on?" She asked after a moment, her voice laced with concern. I sighed and looked away.

After Sarah's death, Kendal had been the only person who kept me from completely losing my mind. The two of us shared a tent and at least twice times a week (sometimes more) I would wake up screaming. But Kendal, being the loving and compassionate person she was, never got mad or irritated, she would just come over and hold me as I cried. She never pushed me away, she'd just let me cry and talk until there was nothing left to say. Honestly, if it hadn't been for her, I'm not sure how I would have gotten through it. Yes, the memory still hurts, but it's easier to cope with now.

"I don't know, a few days maybe. Kendal those first two weeks after Sarah's death you got less sleep than I did. I know that took a lot out of you, and I can happily tell you that the nightmares aren't as bad as they were. I'm really okay." I said smiling lightly.

Kendal just stared at me, and I could tell she didn't fully believe me, but she nodded. "Just promise me you'll come to me if you need too okay? I mean it."

I laughed and pulled her in for another hug, "I promise Ken, thank you for looking out for me." She hugged me back tightly, "Always, you know that. It hurts to see you so upset, besides that's what best friends are for and I know you'd do the same for me." She said smiling.

I chuckled and pulled back, "So, besides coming to check on me, was there another reason as to why you're here?"

Her eyes lit up with panic, "Crap! I came to get you because Colonel Raymond wanted to go over a briefing for the mission tonight." She looked down at her watch, "The meeting started fifteen minutes ago!" I couldn't help but laugh at the expression on the younger woman's face. Her usual cheerful blue eyes filled with panic, her face scrunched up in an extremely worried manner and she was biting her lower lip like she did when she was in a stressful situation.

I chuckled and nudged her with my elbow, "You're going to go prematurely grey if you keep stressing out like this." Her hand automatically went to her flaming red hair, "That's so not funny Alex!" She said glaring at me. I winked at her and grabbed the jacket off my chair. "I thought it was," I said ducking as she threw a wad of paper at my head. "Can we just go please?" I laughed and followed the grouchy ginger out the door.


	3. Apology

Hey guys! Just wanted to apologize for the long delay on this next chapter. Things have been extremely busy lately with Spring Break and all the papers I've had to do for college. I promise I'll upload Chapter 3 sometime this week.

I'd love to hear how you guys are enjoying the story or if there is anything you'd like to happen. I do apologize for some of the spelling mistakes and sentences that don't make sense. I've tried to go back and fix them, but when I go back and check it doesn't look like it went through.

Thank you for all the follows and favorites! It really means a lot to know people are interested in the story! Hope things are going well for everyone! Next chapter will be up soon!

A. Mitchell


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